Cassandra Black

Name: Cassandra Black

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: 12

School: Aurora High School

Hobbies and Interests: French Literature, Basketball (spectating), Finance

Appearance: Cassandra stands at 5’5” and weighs 135 pounds. She has moderately pale skin from her European heritage and is moderately slim, with a little bit of fat and little muscle. She is a bit curvy, with hips and shoulders that are slightly larger than average for a Caucasian girl of her height. She has slightly above-average sized breasts and a fairly soft stomach. She has wavy, brown hair that she wears at shoulder-length. She doesn’t do anything to her hair other than comb it, so it has a neat, but natural look. She has round green eyes, and a small nose and mouth that sit on a somewhat narrow face.

Cassandra has no piercings, tattoos, or scars. She typically wears a fitted t-shirt, bootleg-cut jeans, and sneakers. She wears no jewelry, and only puts on makeup for special occasions. When she does wear makeup, it is very little, only ever using light amounts concealer and eyeliner. The only aspect about her appearance that particularly stands out is her immaculate posture, especially when she is among her peers, who tend to slouch constantly. She almost always carries a cross-shoulder bag, which is full of her notebooks and textbooks.

Biography: Cassandra Black was born to her single mother, Nancy Black. Nancy always told Cassandra that she didn’t know who her father was, but Nancy knows that Cassandra was born from an anonymous one-night stand. Nancy had only gotten a first name from the man, and, because he paid for the motel room in cash, Nancy could not easily track him. She did not have the funds to hire a private investigator to track the man down, so she gave up on trying to find the man and instead focused on raising her daughter to the best of her abilities. Cassandra was born on September 12th, 1993, in Detroit, Michigan.

Growing up, the Black family was very poor. Nancy worked multiple dead-end jobs in an attempt to keep herself and her daughter from starving, but Cassandra got very little in the way of material goods growing up. Some of the jobs Nancy held included waitress, dishwasher, and cashier at a local Safeway. Because Nancy didn’t even have enough money to replace the television when Cassandra was an infant, the only form of entertainment that Nancy could think of for Cassandra was to go with her daughter to the public library and read to her daughter from the cornucopia of books on her days off. Nancy herself had loved reading growing up, so she figured that she could share this passion with her daughter. Once Cassandra reached the age where she could read, Nancy allowed Cassandra to check out as many books from the library as the girl wanted, and Cassandra would always surprise her mother with how much and how quickly she would read.

Cassandra’s aptitude for reading extended to other academic pursuits as well. With little to do at home after the library closed, she began asking her teachers for extra work, and her teachers were thrilled to have an engaged student in a group that was otherwise completely disengaged with their education. However, Cassandra’s academic inclinations made her the target of bullying from her classmates and her neighbors. The bullying was mostly taunts and teases, and occasional some of the bigger bullies would push her around a little to scare her. Cassandra’s mother was too busy to fully take notice of what was happening to her daughter, and Cassandra was silent about the taunting and teasing that she received. Cassandra detested the bullies, so she began to hold back her otherwise somewhat outgoing nature and limit her interaction with her peers.

One day, walking home from the library, Cassandra saw a group of boys playing a pickup game of basketball in a local playground. Although she was naturally uncoordinated and unathletic and thus did not enjoy playing sports, Cassandra decided to sit down and watch, and realized that she really enjoyed watching the sport. She continued to sit down and watch the same group of boys play on many occasions, as they tended to play when she was walking home from the library. The boys, seeing that Cassandra had taken interest in their games, eventually began talking to her. Cassandra was able to easily connect with these boys, and she learned the rules of the game from them. She never tried to play, however, and was just content watching. She also greatly enjoyed having friends that she could interact with, because she lacked friends at school and her mother was too busy working to spend a lot of time with her.

Cassandra was 12 when her mother was killed. Nancy had been walking home from work, when two attackers mugged her and then proceeded to stab her repeatedly. Cassandra was terribly traumatized by what had happened, not even fully believing that her mother was dead. However, the funeral forced Cassandra to realize that what had happened was real, that her mother was gone. Cassandra suddenly regretted a lot in her life, mostly how much time she had spent engrossed in reading or watching basketball instead of spending the little off time her mother had from work with her. Cassandra grew a little bit angry with herself, but also angry at her neighborhood. Those same boys that bullied and harassed her were doomed to become the muggers that killed women like her mom. Cassandra’s grief largely manifested itself in the form of anger, and she very suddenly developed a short temper. It didn’t help that Cassandra didn’t have anyone close by to really talk to about her mother’s death right after it happened, because her mom was the only adult in her life and her friends weren’t emotionally mature enough to know how to comfort the grieving Cassandra.

In the aftermath of Nancy’s death, her sister Meredith had flown to Detroit to deal with the funeral planning and watch over Cassandra. Cassandra was then further stunned when social services notified her that her aunt Meredith was her godmother, and that she would be moving in with Meredith in Seattle. Meredith was better off financially than her sister Nancy, and she was in a stable marriage with her husband Joe. Joe was a partner at the Seattle office of a major consulting firm, and Meredith was formerly a recruiter at the same firm. Meredith retired to take care of domestic life once Joe reached partner. Meredith and Joe had no kids of their own, so they were somewhat expecting to become like parents to Cassandra. When Cassandra moved to Seattle, she was slow to acclimate to her new lifestyle. She didn’t like the new food she was eating, she didn’t like the new clothes she was being given, and she didn’t like the new activities that her suburban relatives tried to force her to engage with. Her grief still manifested in the form of anger, and the transition to Seattle gave her more things to be angry at. After a few months of constant arguing, Meredith and Joe realized that it was better to let Cassandra transition to her new life on her own terms, and they backed off. Cassandra would often yell at her aunt and uncle, and the two correctly figured that her anger was her way of coping with her mother’s death, so they were patient in letting Cassandra vent her emotions. Meredith eventually decided that Cassandra should see a psychiatrist to help deal with her emotions, and through her sessions Cassandra began to control her temper and manage her grief better.

Cassandra had a very difficult time relating to most of her new classmates, who mostly came from middle or upper-middle class backgrounds. To her, they didn’t seem like they valued what they had, both materially and with their families. She viewed them all as spoiled and snobbish compared to her basketball-playing friends in Detroit, so she didn’t try to hard to make friends with many of them. She was used to having a small circle of friends to socialize with, so maintaining a small number of friends in Seattle made the transition a little bit easier for her. Most of Cassandra’s friends were the boys and girls who played basketball, because she would often go to their games and talk with them about the sport afterwards. With people who weren’t her friends, she would often snap with very little provocation, and this short temper left her new classmates baffled. Academically, Cassandra’s grades hurt through middle school, while she was grieving over her mother’s death. However, they got better over time, as Cassandra began to heal.

While in middle school in Seattle, Cassandra began to take French in school, and she found the language stunningly beautiful. Cassandra began to spend much of her free time studying French, and once she was adequately proficient, reading French literature. Cassandra’s love of everything French was further solidified when she spent the summer after her sophomore year of high school traveling around France with Meredith and Joe. To her, French was everything that her past was not; it was sophisticated, elegant, unlike the poor and destitute Detroit in which she had been raised, and that opposition drew Cassandra.

Upon entering high school, Cassandra immediately began to look forward to her next goal: college. She didn’t want to end up like her mother, poor and without any potential for a career, so she was going to succeed in high school so that she could get into the school of her choice. Cassandra had, in the few years since her mother had died, come to realize that the best way that she could provide for herself and her kids is through financial security, which could only be achieved with a college degree. She spent all of her free time between studying and various extracurriculars that meant nothing to her. All the volunteering, all the student government work, all of the articles written for the school paper, those were all with one thing in mind: an Ivy League degree. Although she found much of what she was doing tedious, she had the drive necessary to grind out what she felt she needed to do. During her junior year of high school, Cassandra began researching earnings of various professions, and found that going into the financial market and becoming something like an investment banker or private equity manager would give her a very fruitful future. With that in mind, Cassandra began teaching herself economics and finance, and set her sights on a very specific set of colleges known for having good connections to the biggest firms. Cassandra actually found herself somewhat drawn to the theories of economics and finance, which was refreshing to her in a curriculum of math, science, and English literature that she found somewhat drab, and her interest only served to push her further down the path towards the finance world.

During her senior fall, Cassandra applied early decision to Dartmouth College. While she was hedging her bets and writing the applications to other schools, she got her letter of acceptance, and immediately disengaged with her extracurriculars. She still studied hard and read about economics in her spare time, but all the résumé padding for college was done, and she would not continue to do things that she didn’t like. Instead, she spends her free time reading French novels and watching basketball.

Advantages: Cassandra is very driven and resolute in her decisions, which will help her keep a level head while on the island. Additionally, she is fairly intelligent and is very good at logical reasoning, which should help her formulate plans for avoiding danger.

Disadvantages: Cassandra has very little in the way of friends and has a hard time connecting with a lot of the Aurora High students, which will greatly limit her ability to make allies on the island. Additionally, she is not athletic, so she will be easy to chase down and fight in hand-to-hand combat.

Designated Number: Female student No. 012

Designated Weapon: Kama (Sickle)

Conclusion: Speaking French... I can see that being helpful in every possible way. Her chances are sickeningly low. - ''Josh Baines - Baines you're a tool. That reeked. ''

'The above biography is as written by BROseidon. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: BROseidon

Kills:

Killed By:

Collected Weapons: Kama (designated weapon)

Allies:

Enemies:

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Other/Trivia

 * Cassandra is participating in the non-canon V5 Survivor, starting out as a member of the Varna Tribe, where she remained until the merge. Her alliance was able to wrest control of the game using two Hidden Immunity Idols as well as a fortitous Purple Rock tiebreaker. However, in the eleventh Immunity Challenge, both she and alliance member Joachim Lovelace took a penalty of a penalty vote for the next four Tribal Councils. Combined with Joachim accepting a previous penalty of being unable to cast a vote, Cassandra was voted out and became the fifth member of the ten-person jury. She voted for Jaquilyn Locke to win.
 * An earlier draft of the game had Cassandra be the runner-up, being beaten in an audience tiebreaker by Cammy Davidson. This was because the original fifth juror was going to be Joachim. However, this was edited, as it was seen to be a very poor strategic move.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Cassandra, in chronological order.

The Past:

Pre-Game:


 * F is for Finance and Future


 * After the Battle


 * Diversions
 * Sentimental Education


 * A Night Off

V5:
 * Shit Happens
 * Scavengers
 * Now I'm radioactive! That can't be good!
 * Geiger Counter
 * Everything Here is a Small Cap Investment

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Cassandra Black. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''